It was alarmingly similar to what had happened on the highway with the car trying to run the Harley off the road. Close enough to scare, but not close enough to kill. I looked down at my shaking hands and swore long and loud at the fact I hadn’t had my wits about me enough to look at either the driver or license plate. I knew Church was going to be even angrier than he already was when I told him what happened. He might not want to play house with me, but I had no question about how protective and fierce he was over me. It was one of the things that had made me fall for him from the start.

Elma Mae was right, something wasn’t right here and it was becoming more and more obvious that it was directly related to Church bringing me home with him.

Church

Locating Dalen was easy enough when I got to the convenience store. He was crouched down on the curb in front of the ice cooler out front, the hood of a gray sweatshirt pulled up over the top of his head and both of his hands wrapped up in white bandages that I assumed came from inside the store. He looked like a prize fighter that had gone a few rounds with a worthy competitor and I knew from firsthand experience that both his eyes were going to be dark purple before the day was done. His bottom lip was already swollen to twice its normal size and there was a line of dried blood down the center of it where it was split in half. He was going to be hurting even though it looked like he had put up one hell of a fight. As pissed off as I was, I also had a good dose of masculine pride working that he had been able to hold his own when things got rough.

He rose gingerly to his feet as I swung off the bike and made my way over to him. “Got in touch with Jules. Turns out the call out to the Holler was bogus, so he was already on his way back when I called. He should be here any minute.” It didn’t escape either of our notices that the call that took him way out of town coincided perfectly with Dalen getting attacked. Someone was pulling on the strings of my return, making us all dance around like puppets and playthings. What started out as annoying and problematic was quickly turning dangerous.

“I told you they weren’t from around here. I didn’t recognize the truck or any of the guys. They were a bunch of backwoods types, the kind that don’t come into any town very often. Think Deliverance.” He took his hood off and licked at the slice in the center of his lip. “There was something weird when they rolled up on us though.”

“Weird how?” The side of his head had a nasty scrape on the side of it and there was a furious red line along the side of his neck like someone had tried to strangle him. The marks made my vision go red and I couldn’t stop the scowl or the furious flood of dirty words that rolled off my tongue.

Dalen looked at me with wide eyes and shifted his weight on his sneaker-clad feet. He tucked his bandaged hands in the center pocket of his shirt and looked down at the ground as his brow furrowed while he tried to concentrate. “Well, I was supposed to be in class. I don’t usually ditch, today was a fluke, but when they stopped, the guy that was riding in the back pointed at me and yelled ‘There he is!’” He shrugged his shoulders and let them fall. “It was like they were looking for me, but that’s impossible because I wasn’t supposed to be here. It didn’t seem like they were out looking for just anyone that didn’t look like them to mess with. I mean there aren’t a lot of us in Lowry but there are enough that I couldn’t have been the first dark-skinned guy they came across today. It seemed like they were looking for a very specific person of color.” He pointed to his face. “This color.”

I exhaled a long breath and felt fear, frigid and chilling, curl around my spine and slither out of the darkness where it always lurked. That voice that reminded me what happened when I was around those I loved whispered ugly insinuations and taunts in my ear. That poison that infected the people I cared about was starting to seep out, and it had only been a handful of hours that I’d been home.

I looked at the young man who bore a striking resemblance to the image I looked at every day in the mirror. He was obviously years younger and favored Julian in ways I couldn’t, but there was no mistaking we were related. There wasn’t a single doubt in my mind that the guys that had put a beating on Dalen were looking for me and found him instead. The convenience store was one of the first stops in Lowry when you were coming into town. I bet they saw him standing outside of the building and thought they got a lucky break.

My little brother had taken a beating that was meant for me.

Ten years of peace and quiet.

Ten years of a fairly normal childhood minus the fact he’d lost more than one mother.

Ten years of security and serenity, things the poor kid deserved more than most, and it only took one day for the bad that always seemed to work its way into my life to blow it all to hell.

“They were more than likely looking for me, kid. It’s your bad luck that we happen to look so much alike.” I shook my head and lowered my gaze to the ground. “You took a beating that was meant for me. I’m sorry.” Sorry for the fact he was hurting. Sorry that it was my fault. Sorry that I brought ruthless things with me wherever I went.

He snorted, which had me lifting my head so that we were staring at each other. It was like looking at a better version of myself. Dalen had been through all the same horrors of love and loss that I had, but even though he was just a little boy at the time he’d handled everything that’d happened better than I had.

“I’m not sorry I look like you.” His bloody lip twitched as he tried to smile. The motion made it bleed and had him wincing in pain. He used the bandage on his hand to stem the flow of red and lifted his eyebrows at me. “When you weren’t around, sometimes looking at myself was the only reminder I had of you, Dash.” Right in the fucking heart. This kid was going to be the end of me with his truth bombs and unvarnished honesty. “Plus I can’t even handle all the girls that are up on me all the time. Looking like you has its advantages.”